Public Bill Committee

[Mr James Gray in the Chair]
1.30 pm

James Gray: It may be helpful to the Committee, in welcoming you all, if I lay out how we can proceed today with all due efficacy, as a number of us have discussed. No amendments have been tabled, so rather than having seven separate stand part debates for each clause, it may be sensible to have one quasi-Second Reading debate on clause 1 stand part, and to then take the balance of the stand part debates more or less as read. We can take them formally later on, if that is agreeable to the Committee.
With that in mind, we will begin with clause 1 stand part. I will be content to take comments about clauses 2 to 7 under the guise of clause 1.

Clause 1  - Form of parking badges

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Simon Kirby: It is a great pleasure to address the Committee under your chairmanship, Mr Gray.
I hope that everyone present supports the Bill, which aims to protect the blue badge parking scheme for disabled people. The scheme was established under the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970, and currently enables around 2.5 million disabled people to retain their independence by allowing them to park close to where they need to go.
However, as the years have passed, the substantial financial value of a badge has provided non-badge holders with an incentive to commit fraud and abuse the scheme. There are many types of abuse, including copying, forging and changing details. The Bill is an attempt to close some loopholes and increase the quality of life of disabled people by reducing abuse, providing them with more parking spaces and enabling the scheme to run as was intended in the 1970 Act.
The Bill will improve the ability of local authorities to tackle fraud on the street and make more parking spaces available to disabled people. First, the Bill removes the requirement for the Secretary of State to prescribe the form, or design, of a parking badge in the regulations. That will make the design more confidential and secure, making forgeries more difficult.
Secondly, the Bill will provide local authorities with a new power to cancel a badge that is no longer in the holder’s possession; for example, when it has been lost or stolen. Without that power, such a badge arguably remains a valid document. That will clarify the legal status of such badges.
Thirdly, the Bill will make it clear that it is an offence to use a badge that should have been returned. Provisions that concern criminal offences should be precise, otherwise there is a risk that a prosecution may be successfully challenged. The Bill removes any ambiguity. Fourthly, the Bill enables an employee or contractor of a local authority, wearing plain clothes, to inspect badges, if authorised in writing to do so by the authority. That ability does not currently exist.
Fifthly, the Bill will enable civil enforcement officers in England and Wales to retain a badge that has been presented to them and which appears to be fake, has been cancelled or is due for return. Sixthly, the Bill will establish the Secretary of State as a badge issuing authority for members of the armed forces and persons employed in support of those forces who are resident in UK military bases overseas. I am sure that we would all welcome that.
Finally, I want to make a technical point. The Bill will remove the right of appeal to the Secretary of State, which I understand happens in only one or two cases a year. It will give appellants the right to appeal to their councils and then to the local government ombudsman. The Bill is designed to improve the scheme and make disabled people’s lives easier and better.

Jim Fitzpatrick: It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair this afternoon, Mr Gray. I congratulate the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown on securing his place in the ballot for private Members’ Bills and on being able to bring the Bill to the Committee. I assure him that we will be supporting it. I have a few points that I would like clarified, either by him or by the Minister, whom I welcome warmly to his place. Many of us in the House have been waiting to see him on the Front Bench for some years, so it is good to see that he has eventually got there. We wish him well in his role in the years to come.
I have just been observing the number of West Ham United supporters on the Committee. Were that number to be reflected in the general population, West Ham would have about 12 million supporters. I do not know whether it is a punishment for those of us, on both sides of the House, who are West Ham supporters that we have been put on the Committee; I would rather think that it is a reward for us to be here to support the excellent Bill of the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown.
I wish to raise only three points. First, can the hon. Gentleman, or indeed the Minister, reassure us that there are no resourcing implications for local authorities in the Bill? Secondly, what arrangements will be made for training enforcement officers, as we obviously want to see consistency applied with regard to the blue badge in future, just as it is at the moment? Could we also have an assurance that consistency will be maintained in the design of the badge? Design will now be more in the hands of local authorities, and there needs to be consistency across the country.
My last point is one that the hon. Gentleman referred to, but I seek confirmation on it. It concerns the frequency of appeals to the Secretary of State, which has been very low. Can we have an assurance that the removal of the provisions for the right of appeal will have no impact on an individual’s entitlement to make representations about the blue badge? Subject to those few points where we seek clarification and additional information, we will be pleased to support the Bill’s passage today.

Hywel Williams: It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I too congratulate the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown on bringing his Bill forward and securing time for it.
It is fair to say that the parking badge scheme has been of huge benefit to many thousands of people since its introduction. In fact, it has been transformational for the lives of disabled people, including a close relative of mine. As a young man, he was injured in a car crash, and without his blue badge he would effectively have been confined to his house, especially as our area is a tourist area; at peak times for tourist traffic, he would not have been able to go out, as he would not have been able to bring his car round. It is a wonderful scheme.
However, the misuse of the system is well known, and has, I am sorry to say, brought it into some disrepute. I am therefore glad to see this Bill, as a further step towards clarification and reform. I particularly welcome clause 4, on enforcement, as the scheme is still being abused. If you will allow me, Mr Gray, I will relate a short story. About two weeks ago, I was crossing Y Maes, a large, open square in the middle of Caernarfon. There are a number of businesses in the square that people want to use, but there is no parking there except disabled parking bays. As I was passing those bays, a car pulled up, and somebody leapt out and literally sprinted into the post office. When I looked in the car’s front window, there it was—a blue badge. I could not hang about and upbraid the person, but there we have it: the system is still being abused. The sooner that sort of abuse is stopped, the better. Clause 4 will help local authorities to stamp it out, so I hope to see the measure implemented as soon as possible by my local authority and others.
I also hope that the continuing reform of the scheme will change the public perception that previous abuse of some parts of the scheme has engendered. It will, I hope, improve local authorities’ practice and perhaps engender positive change in their efforts to meet the needs of disabled people. Again, I include my own local authority in that, because we have particular problems with access to some areas in my constituency. For example, the high street in the city of Bangor is closed off at times to people with disabilities because of enforcement problems. I hope that this change in the law will lead to better circumstances for disabled people in Bangor as well.
Finally, I have a minor point on clause 1, which refers to a prescribed form and inserts the words “in valid form”, referring to forms specified and approved by the Secretary of State. I hardly need say that, in Wales, I hope the badges will be bilingual, with the Welsh language first.

Paul Goggins: I have some brief comments. I congratulate the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown on introducing the Bill. I am very happy to support it.
To my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse, I want to say that one person who would not have been a West Ham United supporter is my predecessor, the former Member for Manchester Wythenshawe, the late Lord Morris of Manchester. The hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown is bringing forward legislation that amends Lord Morris’s Bill, which became the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970. If you would permit me, Mr Gray, this is the first opportunity I have had since Lord Morris sadly died during the summer to pay tribute to him. It is timely to bring forward the Bill now. It will make the administration of the badge more effective, consistent and of more use to disabled people. It will stand as yet another tribute to Lord Morris for the groundbreaking legislation that he brought forward, which transformed the circumstances of millions of disabled people in this country and throughout the world. It also changed the mindset of whole societies in relation to disabled people. I hope the Committee will not mind if I take this opportunity—the first I have had—to pay tribute to Lord Morris of Manchester for the tremendous work he did for disabled people. It will be enhanced by the Bill.

Stephen Hammond: It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I am delighted that the Committee is considering my hon. Friend’s Bill today. He is to be congratulated on getting it to this stage and on drawing support from both sides of the House. The Bill will play an important part in the reform of the blue badge disabled parking scheme. It will help to tackle the abuses of the system that have grown up. Reform is needed; those abuses have damaged the lives of disabled people and cost local authorities millions of pounds.
I thank the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse for his kind words of welcome. We enjoyed sparring when he was in this place and I was in that place, and I look forward to that again now. I also welcome his words of support for my hon. Friend’s Bill.
I echo, as I am sure the whole Committee will want to, the words of the right hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East about Lord Morris and the work that he did in recognising what was necessary to improve access for disabled people and to make their lives more successful; I am sure that the Committee will want to put that on the record.
My hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown has given an excellent summary of the Bill. However, I think that the Government will wish to put on record that clause 1, in particular, is important because it ensures absolutely that we can take action to prevent forgery and provide greater flexibility, so that we can keep up with any fraudsters trying to replicate the shape and form of the badge.
The hon. Member for Arfon was right to talk about clause 4. It is an important part of the Bill, and allows enforcement officers to perform quick and easy validity checks. It also ensures that enforcement officers who are performing other functions can run this check alongside their normal obligations.
It may help my hon. Friend if I answer the questions put from the Opposition Front Bench. First, the Government, and I think my hon. Friend, believe that there will be no financial consequences for local authorities as a result of the measure. Secondly, because I have made those remarks about clause 4, I hope the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse will recognise that it would not necessarily be appropriate for central Government to dictate the training that is necessary. The civil enforcement officers who will be undertaking those tasks routinely undertake similar tasks, so the Government do not feel that it is necessary to prescribe training—it would be wrong to do so. Local authorities could easily do this as a quick and easy extension to what they already do.
The hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse raised the issue of the right of appeal. First, I should put on record that there was never a right of appeal to the Secretary of State on eligibility criteria, but there was a right of appeal for when a badge had been withdrawn. The Government consulted on that issue and found no opposition to the removal of that right of appeal. Secondly, as my hon. Friend said, there are only two or three such appeals each year. Given that the scheme is operated by local government, it would be more logical and consistent for any appeals that are necessary to be heard by a local government officer.
The Government welcome the Bill. We are pleased to support it, and we congratulate my hon. Friend.

Simon Kirby: I am pleased to receive support from both sides of the Committee. Many local authorities and disabled groups up and down the country are pleased that the Bill is making progress; that must surely be good.
My hon. Friend the Minister adequately explained the cost to local authorities, but it is estimated that some £46 million of fraud could be saved if the loopholes were closed. On public perception, I must say that public perception is everything. The blue badge scheme is valuable and valued by disabled people up and down the country, but there is a perception that there is a great deal of fraud and misuse of badges. If we can change that perception, that can only be a good thing.
As to whether there is any impact on resources, I believe the relevant figure is £2,000 a year for military-issued badges; otherwise, there will purely be savings for local authorities. On design consistency, it is clearly important that if someone has a badge issued in one local authority and they use it in a different local authority, they are not accused of it being a copy or a fake. The Bill does not seek to change design consistency; it seeks only to disguise some of the secret and high-tech features contained in the badges by not publishing details of them in regulations.
I thank everyone for their attendance and for their valuable contributions, including Members on both sides of the Committee and the Minister. I thank you, Mr Gray, as well as the Officers, the Hansard reporters and everyone else involved in getting the Bill to this stage.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 1 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 2 to 7 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Bill to be reported, without amendment.

Committee rose.